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Monday, July 2, 2012

Fresh ARCs! Get your fresh, hot ARCs!

NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED. And the winners are...Anonymous, who gets FREEMAN; Carla, who gets THE
MAN WHO TURNED BOTH CHEEKS; Stacy Michelle, who gets SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST;
and Tea, who gets BEAUTIFUL, DIRTY, RICH. Winners, please email me your mailing addresses (carleenbrice AT gmail DOT com).

ARCs are advanced readers' copies, and I've received 4 recently from publishers that I want to pass along. So before 10 p.m. MDT Monday, July 9th leave a comment on this post. Tell us the title of a good book you just read or what you're looking forward to reading next and which of the 4 books (Beautiful, Dirty, Rich; Freeman; South by Southeast; or The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks) that you'd like to win. I'll pick names at random using Random.org.

Beautiful, Dirty, Rich by J.D. Mason. On sale tomorrow, July 2nd! First in a new series about Blink, Texas, a tiny town with lots of secrets. If you're psyched because "Dallas" is back on the air, you should know the Ewings have got nothing on Mason's Gatewood clan! From RT Book Reviews: "This is a captivating story with so many twists and turns that readers may feel dizzy. The clues to Desi's mystery are as intriguing as the characters, who all hide deep secrets. Readers will find this one hard to put down."

South by Southeast by Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes (presented by Blair Underwood). The fourth in the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series is due out in September. If hearing that it could be could be described "as Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins meets Miami Vice" doesn't make you want to buy the book, just watch the video below. Perhaps something about it will get your attention. :) Remember, Barnes and Due also have their zombie novel The Devil's Wake out at the end of this month!

The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks, second in a series by Gillian Royes. This one isn't out until December. Talk about getting an early sneak peek!
From the publisher: "Jamaica is the picturesque background for
this explosive novel about love, fear, and intolerance, the second in
Gillian Royes’s mystery series featuring charming and charismatic
bartender-turned-detective Shad. Hopes for the impoverished
village of Largo Bay come alive with the arrival of Joseph, estranged
son of bar owner Eric. Janna, who has returned to the island, falls for
Joseph’s good looks and charm, but she isn’t the only one with an eye
for this mysterious man. As questions about Joseph’s
sexuality arise, Shad struggles with protecting the survival of his
beloved birthplace amidst the deeply ingrained culture of intolerance
that surrounds him. Questions arise about what it means to be a man and a
father, and Shad feels pressure to defend what he knows is right. As in the acclaimed The Goat Woman of Largo Bay,
the first book in this series, Gillian Royes paints an indelible
picture of a beautiful land where religion is strong but life is cheap,
and explores what happens when a village must confront its own darkness
or lose a bright future."

A good list of new and upcoming releases from Mala Nunn, Stephen Carter, Susan Fales-Hill and more can be found on the APOOO Book Club site. Thanks to APOOO, I found one I'm especially interested in: Elsewhere, California by Dana Johnson. Danzy Senna, author of one of my favorite novels Caucasia, says "Dana Johnson’s extraordinary novel offers an arresting vision of black female identity that transcends color and class even as it reveals its continuing power in our lives. The main character, Avery, is everything at once: struggling and middle-class, black and not-quite-black-enough, sexually invisible and sexually exoticized. Avery is about as complex and compelling a heroine as I’ve read recently, and Elsewhere, California is a luminous, funny, and poignant tale that speaks directly to a whole generation raised in a state of cultural confusion.”

In other news, The Bat Segundo Show has some new author podcasts up you might want to check out, including talks with Samuel R. Delany, author of Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, and Jesymn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones.

Note to readers: Full disclosure: I know J.D. Mason, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes.
Agate Bolden, publisher of Freeman, will also publish a writing book by
me tentatively titled The Not So Fearless Writer. However, I never post
about books that I don't believe in. Even if a book is not my particular cup
of tea, people who like the genre or type of book may like it and I
enjoy letting readers know it's out there.

I am in the middle of "Freeman" and it is every bit as good as I thought it would be. I am eager to read "South by Southeast". I have read the three earlier Tennyson Hardwick books by Due, Barnes,and Underwood and have been eagerly anticipating the fourth.

The Freeman is on my to-read list, but I already have it. I also have, but haven't yet read, The Goat Woman of Largo Bay. Currently reading I Am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits and can't wait to get deeper into is. So I guess I'd really like to win The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks so I can read it after I finish The Goat Woman.